News/Features

This feature collects articles published online by the following Quad Cities-area media outlets: Quad-City Times, Rock Island Argus/Moline Dispatch, River Cities’ Reader, KWQC, and WQAD. It also includes...

On February 26, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will be voting on rules that would reclassify broadband Internet as a public utility. The stated goal is to give the commission the authority...

Commentary/Politics

A rookie mistake has led to some big problems.
House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton both believed that Governor Bruce Rauner would ask to postpone the scheduled February...

On February 20, U.S. Representatives Jared Polis (D-Colorado) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced two new bills for federal marijuana legalization. The U.S. government’s practice of imprisoning,...

After he was elected governor but before he was sworn in to office, Bruce Rauner repeatedly lambasted Governor Pat Quinn and the legislative Democrats for passing a “booby trap” budget that was about...

On Tuesday, February 24, at 9 a.m., (previously incorrectly published as 8 a.m.) the annual selection of the Scott County Grand Jury will take place on the second floor of the Scott County Courthouse....

More than a few Statehouse types have been wondering aloud for weeks what Governor Bruce Rauner is up to with his almost daily attacks on organized labor.
His people say that the governor feels “liberated”...

FOCUS
With Will Smith playing its polished and professional master of larceny, and Margot Robbie playing the fledgling grifter who becomes Smith’s mentee and lover, Focus is so contrived, so ridiculous,...

Neil Patrick Harris, at the tail end of last night's Academy Awards ceremony, climaxed his hosting duties with the resolution to a magic trick he'd set up earlier in the evening. Much, much earlier in...

MCFARLAND USA
God, I hate Disney. Not all the time, of course, and in any case, “hate” is probably a strong word. But why does the studio have to keep releasing live-action movies that are inseparable...

Music

The pieces in the Quad City Symphony’s fourth Masterworks concerts of the season would seem to have little in common: modern post-minimalism, a Mozart concerto, and a symphony rooted in religious faith....

(For a sidebar on Ellis Kell’s efforts in music education and community programming, click here.)
What can you say about Ellis Kell? Better question: What can you not?
He’s the director of programming...

In its December 6 concert, the Quad City Symphony checked off three important boxes – things every orchestra should strive for.
It included contemporary American music, in this case a world premiere...

Glengarry Glen Ross was my introduction to the writing of David Mamet, with the 1992 film version of his play marking my first exposure to his work. Awestruck, I fell in love with Mamet’s vulgar, layered,...

[For Thom White's review of part one of the District Theatre's Angels in America, visit "Darkness and Plight."]
Something clicked for the cast and crew of the District Theatre's Angels in America: Millennium...

The Prenzie Players' Caesar, the company's truncated title for William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, has a playfulness about it, as director Tracy Skaggs reduces the Roman leader, played here by John...

Art

The height of the five-story Black Hawk mural in the Rock Island District is what first catches our eye. Our attention continues to be held as we begin to realize that much of the mural is a painted...

When Bruce de Gouveia Carter died on November 24 at age 66, he left the Quad Cities art community with a gaping hole.
He was a visual artist, a teacher, and an art-store manager. But his largest legacy...

For the seventh year in a row, Davenport’s Figge Art Museum will host its College Invitational exhibition, a celebration of visual artwork by students from area institutions Ashford University, Augustana...

Against the unknown, Halloween is our brave face. It confronts the lengthening nights and approaching cold of winter. It laughs loudly in the face of death.
Today, Halloween is often perceived simply...